The Merced County Sheriff said the suspect -- 48-year-old Jesus Salgado, who is in custody -- had previously worked for the family's trucking company and had a longstanding dispute with them that"got pretty nasty."
"Our worst fears have been confirmed," Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said at a Wednesday night news conference. "There's just…there's no words right now to describe the anger I feel and the senselessness of this incident," said Guramrit Singh Ghoman with UC Berkeley Sikh Student Association."When something happens like this, everybody supports. And I'm sure they'll be more vigils in Sacramento, in Yuba City, up and down the Valley and in the Bay Area," said Ghoman.
The four family members were taken from their business in Merced, a city of 86,000 people about 125 miles southeast of San Francisco in the San Joaquin Valley, California's agricultural heartland.Relatives of Salgado contacted authorities reporting that he had admitted to them he was involved with the kidnapping, Warnke told KFSN-TV on Tuesday. Salgado tried to take his own life before police arrived at a home in nearby Atwater, and he has since been hospitalized.
"Please help us out, come forward, so my family comes home safe," Sukhdeep Singh, a brother of the victims, said, his voice breaking.